The Mortgage Bankers Association's annual Commercial Mortgage Servicing & Technology Conference has become an important venue for more industry participants over the past few years. As our executives moved through the venue, meeting with commercial mortgage servicers from around the country, three primary themes emerged. We share them with you here.

MBA Insights posed questions to Thomas W. Cronkright II, CEO of CertifID, Grand Rapids, Mich., a software company focused on preventing wire fraud in the real estate, lending and title industries. He is also a founding member of Sun Title Agency, Grand Rapids, and serves as its CEO. He is an attorney admitted to practice in Michigan and holds a real estate broker's license. More about CertifID can be found at www.certifid.com.

With margins compressing, lenders who want to protect their market share must seek new ways to add value for borrowers--or face the possibility of losing clients to rivals who are equally focused on "land grab."

Production revenues, expenses, personnel and other metrics are divided into four major production channels in the MBA and STRATMOR Peer Group Roundtables data: Retail, Consumer Direct, Broker Wholesale and Correspondent. For this week's chart, we focus on the trending of net production income for the Consumer Direct channel.

The Mortgage Bankers Association's latest Washington Update features MBA Associate Vice President of Legislative and Political Affairs Kelley Williams, who discusses MBA's meeting with the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection; an MBA/trade group letter to Capitol Hill on flood insurance; and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's testimony before the House Financial Services Committee.

The Mortgage Bankers Association released a new MBANow video featuring MBA Senior Vice President of Residential Policy and Member Engagement Pete Mills, who discusses single-family residential policy issues under debate in Washington.

Mortgage Bankers Association Chief Economist Mike Fratantoni breaks down the MBA Weekly Applications Survey for the week ending July 13.

The Mortgage Bankers Association released a new mPower Moments video featuring MBA Vice President of Human Resources Gene Neill, who discusses managing conflict with MBA COO and mPower Founder Marcia M. Davies.

Joe Wilson is Chief Marketing Officer with SimpleNexus, Lehi, Utah, a digital mortgage services provider serving 15 of the top 25 retail mortgage lenders in the US. It serves more than 180 enterprise mortgage companies and more than 17,000 loan officers nationwide.

Ashley Brown is a Loss Mitigation Quality Assurance Specialist III with RoundPoint Mortgage Servicing, Charlotte, N.C. She earned her Bachelors of Science in biology degree from Francis Marion University in Florence, S.C., and recently earned her Masters of Business Administration with a concentration in Project Management from Strayer University. She enjoys reading novels, listening to podcasts and music and traveling. Most importantly, she says, "what I enjoy the most is being the mother of 13-year-old son, Travis."

"Reg relief" is the buzzword around the mortgage industry these days. Even with TRID 2.0 and the new 1003 application on the horizon, most seem to be breathing a sigh of relief at the thought of a slower pace for new industry regulations. Now that the industry is pausing to catch its collective breath, the time may also be right for lenders to sit down and plot out their long-term digital mortgage strategy.

The Mortgage Bankers Association named Holly Cannon as Vice President for Human Resources.